Kelway gets LAR status with BSS buy Kelway has added Microsoft Large Account Reseller status to its credentials after acquiring Ireland's major (LAR) BSS. BSS,with operations in both Belfast and Dublin, is one of the largest LARs in Ireland expands Kelway's reach.

Managed service providerowner managers looking to exit their businesses will form a key part of The Internet Group's (TIG)acquisition strategy, the firm has said. The MSP is currently ramping up its effort toacquire more firmsthrough its subsidiary, BuymyIT.biz, and claims to have seen a substantial

Mobile testing may seem overwhelming to many testers, as the mobile space is rapidly growing and new challenges arise every day. Independent consultant Karen Johnson offers some tips for approaching these challenges and gives a preview of what she will cover in her STAREAST presentation, “Testing in the Mobile Environment: A Functional View.”

Computer 2000 has announced it will adopt the TDTriade name for its consumer electronics division in the UK and Ireland, writes Linda Endersby. The move brings the firm in-line with parent Tech Data's European ops, which are renaming their consumer electronics businesses after theacquisition of Tria

A grand total of12 resellers have been named to the Pro5 public sector buying consortium's new software and associated services framework, which covers over 200 local authorities and public sector organisations across the country, with two firms, Yorkshire-based Software Box and Phoenix Software, be

According to a new Gartner CEO survey 85% percent of CEOsbelieve their enterprises will be impacted by an economic downturn in 2012, writes Linda Endersby. Despite this cautionary feel most CEOs will increase IT investment, but the aaalyst house has still warned on leadership strategy practice. The

After a period of relative calm and reflection, acquisitive Daisy Group has stoked its boilers once again, handing over an initial cash consideration£28m to acquire business comms provider Worldwide Group Holdings, with the possibility of further consideration based on EBITDA growth in the fut

Investment specialist Notion Capital has unveiled plans to invest up to $150m in cloud computing and Software as a service (SaaS) companies in the UK and Europe. The venture capitalist has already invested $50m in 10 firms so far, including Brightpearl, eSellerpro and Star, and is looking to triple

Specialist IT recruitment agency CV Screen has reported a surge in applicants for IT jobs, with an average of 194 applications per advertised vacany during the last 12 months, suggesting that confidence in the sector was bouncing back. CV Screen managing director Matthew Iveson said that IT professi

There's no doubt that the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games will present a unique situation to British industry, says Dan Cunliffe, head of partners and strategy at O2 Wholesale. The growth of cloud computing, video conferencing and streaming is creating a business landscape that is more dependent o

With more firms planning to invest in mobile projects to enable staff to work on the move its becoming clearer what attributes customers are looking for in potential suppliers. One of the main considerations is that technology vendors chosen for mobile projects can integrate with back end legacy sy

ComputerLinks continues to expand beyond its traditional security business bolstering its other lines with the signing of networked storage specialist Infortrend. The move has been made by the distributor to bolster its security, networking and virtualisation portfolio as it looks to build the next

Mid-sized firms are struggling to secure the top talent as they miss out on some of the most attractive staff to start-ups or larger rivals prepared to give bigger salaries. There has been plenty of noise made about the attempts to rival Silicon Valley with the development of the tech hubs and the

Dell has appointed a channel development director to mastermind growing the business the vendor gets from the top end of its reseller base. Mark Hiley, a former LSI staffer, joins as UK channel development manager director overseeing the efforts to drive indirect revenue, particularly around server

Brother sales and marketing director Phil Jones is to step into the role of UK country head and deputy managing director as the firm repositions its UK management for a renewed push for new market share. The firm is planning to get closer to solution-based business in key verticals, as well as enhan

The Business Software Alliance (BSA) attempts to educate customers about the need to pay for the software is pitching up in Reading. The town, which wakes this morning celebrating the return of its football team to the Premiership, can also look forward to hearing a lot more about the need to have

A weak performance in Europe and from its systems and technology hardware operations took the gloss off the first quarter for IBM. Although Big Blue was able to deliver a set of top line numbers for the three months that ended XXX which all pointed upwards, with net income rising by 7% year-on-year

Intergence, the Cambridge based IT optimisation consultancy has appointed ex Deutsche Bank cloud specialist Alistair McLaurin as a principal consultant, writes Linda Endersby. McLaurin will report to chief operating officer Robert Smith in a role created for him developing on site relationships wit

Cisco has used its annual partner conference for the platform to take the wraps off a couple of fresh partner incentives, writes Linda Endersby. The Cisco Services Partner Program, expected to be available to all partners in all geographies in the next 18 months, will provide access to the vendor's

The services business continues to deliver for Computacenter with the long-term picture looking rosy for the channel player, despite some current margin erosion. The firm revealed the state of its affairs in an interim management statement that indicated that since the start of the year its service

D-Link and Computer 2000 are getting reaccquainted after a two-year break in their relationship, signing a new distribution agreement that will see the full range of D-Link's products, including its IP surveillance and storage lines, sold through C2000's specialist PC Components division. D-Link bus

Shareholders who backed interactive whiteboard (IWB) manufacturer Promethean when it listed on the stock exchange two years ago saw their shares drop to just a third of the original price following poor results from the vendor. Difficult trading conditions in North America, which saw revenues decli

The bring your own device trend is set to reach a £2bn opportunity in the UK softwaare and IT services market by 2016 but could spell problems for those resellers who fail to move with the times. The latest survey of the BYOD market from TechMarketView highlights the growth in the market but

Cloud and network integrator Redstone has said it will look to make further cost savings ofaround £900,000 per annum in response tounpredictable economic conditions. In an interim trading statement for the full-year to 31 March, Redstone said that lengthening sales cycles had lead it to keep a

The growth in the number of security threats should provide the channel with plenty to talk about at next week's InfoSecurity show. Since the last event the rise in advanced persistent threats, often backed by foreign governments, has continued to rise along with a continued expansion in some of th

Avaya has parted company with its UK and Ireland managing director, Andrew Shepperd, after just eight months in charge. Sheppard replaced Lee Shorten at the helm in August last year, and vowed to take a "back to basics" approach to the firm's dealings with the networking channel. His immed

Networking services provider Colt is to add a new string to its bow, creating a franchise partner channel in a bid to increase its exposure to end-user customers across Europeand help comms VARs make the transition into a managed services role. The new scheme will sit within Colt's channel-focused C

The amount of Apple products being handled by distribution across Western Europe continues to rise as demand for the vendor's tablets, notebooks and smartphones carries on spiralling upwards. According to the latest figures from Context, which tracks vendor performances, Apple is bucking the market

Fallen mobilitybehemothNokia will attempt to muddle along without a sales boss after executive vice president Colin Giles decided to cash in his chips and make a hurried exit from the table after 20 years of service, ostensibly to spend more time with his family. Nokia has seized on the departure of

The core parts of Microsoft's operations delivered the numbers for the vendor which saw the performance of its entertainment division, powered by the Xbox, tumble in its third fiscal quarter. The vendor revealed that its servers and tools business grew by 14% year-on-year in revenue to $4.57bn with

Computer 2000 has set out to get more resellers involved with the cloud after establishing a programme to help arm partners with the skills and knowledge needed to sell hosted solutions. The distributor held a cloud discovery day event earlier this week explaining its plans to an audience of resell

With under a month to go until the 2012 London Olympics, we went behind the scenes at LOCOG to find out how Official Worldwide Olympic Partner Acer is meeting the challenge of supplying IT hardware to the greatest show on Earth.

Soon to be compulsory, employers need to know about Real Time Information (RTI), a project launched by the government some 18 months ago to overhaul the way PAYE is run in the UK, writes Jason Piper. The PAYE system has been with us since 1944 having been originally set up to aid collection of taxe

Software vendor Version One has poached ex-Sage midmarket boss to be its new managing director after Julian Buck announced he was stepping down from the role. Ford has been charged with maintaining and increasing Version One's year-on-year growth, and high on his agenda from the offwill be "re-